The Humane Society of the United States works with local Humane Societies across the country. We don't control every local Humane Society in this nation. These organizations strive to the greatest degree to provide homes for animals and to encourage adoption, to spay and neuter animals. And if a decision is made to euthanize, it is a failure of society, not the local organizations who are striving to do their best.

Especially in this Internet age, routine practices are being exposed and rightly recognized as harsh and cruel.

The response by agribusiness interests has been to back laws that ban animal advocates from taking pictures or videos at these facilities, and ban the media from publishing any that are taken. The laws also make it a crime for animal advocates to seek employment at animal enterprises without disclosing their intentions. Media coverage of the legislative fights is overwhelmingly negative for agriculture interests. The impression left among consumers is that the proponents had something to hide.

There are new ways of producing food, film, clothing, and research that steer clear of using animals. Some of those products are functionally equivalent or even superior to what we're used to. Now corporations, legislatures, and other institutions are responding, and supporting these shifts, so we're seeing seismic changes throughout society.

Animal abuse is still widespread and we have so much work ahead.

We would be foolish and silly not to unite with people in the public health sector, the environmental community, [and] unions, to try to challenge corporate agriculture.

There are many innovators hard at work seeking to perfect alternatives to meat, milk, and eggs. These food products will, like computer-generated graphics or photography or sound systems, just keep getting better and better until there is little difference between an animal-based protein and a plant-based one, or farm-produced versus cultured meat. That will make it easy for people to make the kinds of choices that will usher in a world with far less violence.